This week saw the debut of three movies looking to do well at the box office, but it was only one film that made a big splash. The Meg, an action/horror film featuring a 70 foot shark, took the top spot in it's first week, topping the charts with a $44.5 million debut.

Next weekend sees the debut of Mile 22, a Mark Wahlberg led action/thriller. Ronda Rousey and Lauren Conrad also star. Also out is the Constance Wu romantic comedy Crazy Rich Asians, which also features just about every recognizable Asian name in Hollywood. The biggest family film hitting the theaters next week is Alpha, a post Ice Age story bout a boy and his wolf.

Chris Pratt and his fellow Guardians Of The Galaxy stars have released an open letter in support of ousted director James Gunn.

“Although I don’t support James Gunn’s inappropriate jokes from years ago, he is a good man,” Chris Pratt wrote Monday. “I’d personally love to see him reinstated as director of Volume 3. If you please, read the following statement- signed by our entire cast.”

The statement is signed by Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Sean Gunn, Pom Klementieff, Michael Rooker and Karen Gillan. Disney fired Gunn after a series of offensive tweets were unearthed from years ago, where the writer and director appeared to make light of subjects such as pedophilia and rape.

The Walt Disney Company, which controls the Guardians series through its Marvel Studios unit, swiftly fired Gunn, calling the old tweets “indefensible and inconsistent with our studio’s values.” Gunn also apologized. But Disney was quickly condemned in some quarters for reacting to a social media shaming that appeared to have been undertaken as political payback.

Ving Rhames is a huge movie star. He has starred in all kinds of big time movies from Pulp Fiction to the recently released Mission: Impossible - Fallout. He is even famous for his voice, doing voice-overs for countless video games and of course the Arby's commercials. You would think that with all this fame and notoriety the 59 year old actor could enter his house in a nice neighborhood with having the cops called on him. Sadly that just isn't the case.

Rhames shared a racial profiling experience that falls in the category of “relaxing at home while black.” ​The actor was asked about dealing with racism during an interview with Sirius XM’s Clay Cane show on Friday (July 27) where he revealed that police held him at gunpoint after a neighbor called 911 to accuse him of breaking into his own home.

​Rhames said that the police encounter took place at his house in Santa Monica, Calif. sometime this year. The Mission: Impossible – Fallout star was kicking back in his boxers one afternoon when he heard commotion around the house.
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Rhames assumed that the noise came from his puppies running around the backyard, until he heard a knock on the door. “I opened the door [and] it’s a red dot pointed on my face from a 9 mm,” he recalled of the cops storming the house.

“My hands are up and they have me outside, ” said Rhames. “It was a police officer with a 9 mm pointed at me, one officer behind him and two…to the left of me was the captain of police [department], and another officer with a police dog. I get out and [one of the officers] recognized me.”

The officer who recognized Rhames has a son who plays sports with Rhames' son.

​After a little investigating, Rhames found out that his neighbor called 911 to report a “large black man” breaking into the house. Not surprisingly, the neighbor denied calling cops when confronted by Rhames and the officers.

Netflix created a buzz last year when they announced they were working on a hip-hop themed film starring Kyle, Teyana Taylor, Wiz Khalifa and more. Yesterday (July 24) Netflix announced the name of the project, The After Party, and that it will be available for streaming starting August 24.

“When an aspiring rapper goes viral for all the wrong reasons, he thinks his career is over. But when his best friend gets them into a wild NYC after party, he gets one more chance to make the impossible happen,” says the synopsis according to the press release.

The After Party is directed and written by Ian Edelman, with Q of World Star Hip Hop, Jamie Patricof, Katie McNeill, Douglas Banker, Trevor Engelson, Jake Stein and Heather Parry serving as producers. The After Party will also feature cameos from French Montana, DJ Khaled, Ski Mask the Slump God, Desiigner, Pusha T, Jadakiss, Tee Grizzley, Young M.A, and more.

Year after year the San Diego Comic Con has been the biggest event in comic/sci-fi/nerd culture. Whether you are a Trekkie or the force is strong with you, they always have something entertaining for most. Another major part of the SDCC is the movie and TV trailer reveals. Below are some of the can't miss trailers for new movies, TV shows, and up-coming season of current shows.

Movies

Aquaman - December 21, 2018​

​Aquaman finds himself caught between a surface world that ravages the sea and the underwater Atlanteans who are ready to revolt.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald - November 16, 2018​

​Magizoologist Newt Scamander joins forces with young Albus Dumbledore to prevent the devious Gellert Grindelwald from raising pure-blood wizards to rule over all non-magical beings.

Glass - January 18, 2019​

​Security guard David Dunn uses his supernatural abilities to track Kevin Wendell Crumb, a disturbed man who has 23 personalities.

Shazam! - April 5, 2019​

​Shazam! is an upcoming American superhero film based on the DC Comics character of the same name. It is intended to be the seventh installment in the Worlds of DC shared film universe.

Television

Star Wars: The Clone Wars - No release date set

​Lucasfilm Animation surprised Star Wars fans at Comic-Con by announcing that Star Wars: The Clone Wars will return and pick up where the animated series left off in 2013.

Arrow Season 7- ​October 15, 2018, The CW

​It’s Arrow’s seventh season, and by now the show knows what works: superhero landings, martial arts, and gratuitous shots of Stephen Amell’s abs.

Better Call Saul Season 4 - August 6, 2018, AMC

​The fourth season of Better Call Saul promises a first-time introduction to a character who’s always been lurking in the shadows.

Black Lightning Season 2 - October 9, 2018, The CW

​Black Lightning is following up its impressive debut season with the promise of an ominous villain who wants to “rip the light out of Black Lightning.”

Doctor Who Series 11 - October 2018, BBC One

​Jodie Whittaker is the first woman to play Doctor Who’s title role in the history of the show. She’ll make her debut as the Thirteenth Doctor when season 11 premieres this fall, and this is our first real glimpse of her in action.

The Gifted Season 2 - September 25, 2018, FOX

Fox’s dystopian post-X-Men mutant show is back, and it looks like we’re going to get comic book fixtures like the Morlocks as well as a new mutant on the block that’s looking for world domination.

The Walking Dead Season 9 - October 7, 2018, AMC

​The trailer for the ninth season of The Walking Dead shows our survivors coming together and, well, realizing that living together as a new community isn’t going to be as easy or as peaceful as they thought. Season nine — which will also be Andrew Lincoln’s last season playing Rick Grimes.

​Titans Season 1 - Fall 2018, The CW

​Forget what you know about the Teen Titans on television. DC’s Titans is based on the same comic book super team (who were also a fixture as a cartoon back in the day as the Teen Titans and now as Teen Titans Go!) but ostensibly darker and grittier than ever before. Case in point: Robin saying, “Fuck Batman.”

With great visibility comes great scrutiny. It's important to remember that in this age of social media. Whether you are the President of the United States or Permit Patty, what you do or say in the public eye can hurt you now & in the future. This apparently holds true for popular and highly successful directors as well.

James Gunn, the man who helped bring an obscure Marvel Comic called Guardians of the Galaxy to main stream success, has been fired from his gig at Disney. The firing came the discovery and circulation of several old tweets in which he displayed gross humor and made jokes about rape. The tweets began to circulate Thursday (June 19) and Disney fired Dunn by Friday (June 20) afternoon.

The many of the tweets in question were posted a decade ago and contained jokes about topics like rape, pedophilia, sex, and masturbation. Many have since been deleted. According to the Daily Dot, “they resurfaced online after [Gunn] voiced his opinion on director Mark Duplass’ now-retracted endorsement of the Daily Caller Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro.”

Many conservatives began calling for Gunn’s firing, and encouraged their followers to confront Disney and Gunn himself. They made it clear that Gunn needed to be held to the same standards of conduct that many conservatives are. Gunn is also a vocal critic of President Trump, which may also explain why the push for his firing was so hard.

Gunn has since tried to explain his tweets as his foolish younger self and promised that days of views like that are over, but he has yet to offer any kind of apology.

Gunn was also scheduled to appear at San Diego Comic-Con this weekend as part of Sony’s Hall H presentation, but it’s unclear if he will still be in attendance.

As you already know, Dr. Dre is no stranger to film success. Despite being known as a legendary rapper and music producer, he showed what he can do on the big screen with 2015's Straight Outta Compton. Now he has his sights set on another biopic featuring a music legend, Marvin Gaye.

Dr. Dre ​is now working on a movie about the late singer Marvin Gaye. While rumors of other biopics from the likes of F. Gary Gray, Cameron Crowe, James Gandolfini, Scott Rudin and more have surfaced in the past, this is the first time that Marvin Gaye's estate has approved anything. Jamie Foxx landed the rights for a limited series in 2016 but it never got off the ground.

​Marvin Gaye, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame recipient, shaped the sound of Motown in the 1960s and 70s. He was fatally shot by his father at their L.A. home in 1984 after a physical altercation resulting from a family dispute.

So a new Willy Wonka movie from Warner Bros. is in the works. The studio has already has a director lined up in Paul King (Paddington), but are still unsure about who will be the title character in the film. One of the names being rumored is multi-talented actor/musician Donald Glover (Atlanta, Parks & Recreation).

Glover is reportedly one of three actors on the shortlist to possibly play the character, Collider reports. He stands alongside Ryan Gosling and Justice League’s Ezra Miller. Paul King has already been tapped to direct the upcoming film.

​Willy Wonka is based off of author Roald Dahl’s 1964 book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which depicts a poor boy as he joins a group of young contest winners on an adventure through a crazy yet dazzling chocolate factory led by its bizarre owner.

The first film adaptation, entitled Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, arrived in 1971, starring deceased actor Gene Wilder. Johnny Depp later revived the character in 2005’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.